Anton Sorokow, Professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, was born in 1978 into a family of musicians in Moscow. He received his first violin lessons at the age of four from his mother. At the age of ten, he began studying at the Central Music School in Moscow with Yevgenia Chugayeva. In 1991, he moved to Vienna and obtained Austrian citizenship in 1996. He continued his studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in 1991 under Prof. Dora Schwarzberg, completing them with distinction in March 2004.
In addition to numerous other awards, Anton Sorokow won the 1st Prize and a special prize at the Beethoven Competition in the Czech Republic (1994), as well as 1st prizes at the Stefanie Hohl Competition in Vienna (1997) and the Romano Romanini Competition in Brescia (1999).
His artistic career has been particularly shaped by his involvement as a soloist and concertmaster with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, and the Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra (where he was the 1st concertmaster from 2003 to 2005). Another pivotal moment in his development as a musician was meeting the great violinist Isaac Stern in Verbier. Over several years, he benefited from Stern’s musical advice and support. His performances with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, as well as his collaborations with renowned musicians and conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Georges Prêtre, Philippe Jordan, Myung Whun Chung, Kent Nagano, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Mstislav Rostropovich, Franz Welser-Möst, and Fabio Luisi, have also had a decisive impact on his artistic career. Another highlight was his 2001 joint performance with Montserrat Caballé in front of 5,000 listeners in the Moscow Gostiny Dvor Arcade.
From 2003 to 2005, he was the 1st concertmaster of the Nuremberg Philharmonic at the State Theater Nuremberg. Since 2005, he has been the 1st concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
In the summer of 2007, he recorded significant violin concertos by Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Kabalevsky with the Vienna Classical Players, and in 2023 he recorded Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” with the Vienna Concert-Verein Chamber Orchestra on behalf of the Austrian National Bank.
From 2008 to 2011, he taught at the Vienna Conservatory – Private University, and since 2011 he has been a Professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Since 2024, he has been the director of the Fritz Kreisler Institute at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Since 2013, he has been a guest Professor at the University of Milan-Bicocca and a co-founder of the Eisenstadt Easter Seminar and the masterclasses in Sozopol, Bulgaria. He regularly performs chamber music and holds masterclasses at the NYCMF Music Festival in Norway. Additionally, he has served on the juries of several international competitions and has been invited to numerous masterclasses both domestically and abroad. His students have won positions in prestigious European orchestras (e.g., the Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony Orchestra) and have earned top prizes at international music competitions, including the Fritz Kreisler Competition, the Johannes Brahms Competition, the Vaclav Hummel Competition in Zagreb, Valsesia Musica, the Anton Rubinstein Competition in Düsseldorf, and the International Osaka Competition.
Anton Sorokow plays a violin made by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, Cremona 1741, known as “Ex Carrodus,” from the collection of the Austrian National Bank.